


chocolate ain't as sweet (when you eat it all alone)

by OliveYou



Category: PRISTIN (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: #sungwooz, Chocolate, F/M, Pining, Valentine's Day, background nacheol, i've read a thousand highschool aus does that count, im homeschooled so uh what is highschool like??? i do not know, merry christmas yall, oh yeah forgot the most important tag:, only three paragraphs??? what is this, please listen to girl's day everyday!! i recommend every song bc all of them are good!!!, pristeen, side note: edge is evil and i am now a firefox convert, that is definitely a good ship name, upside to being sick: writing 4k words of sungwooz, vague highschool au??, way too much pining, will olive ever write from sungyeon's perspective?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OliveYou/pseuds/OliveYou
Summary: “Valentine’s Day is a horrible thing that never should’ve been invented,” he states, then plops his head down on the table with a thump. Jeonghan considers this, stealing one of Jihoon’s french fries in the process."Is this about Sungyeon again?"(a love story about valentine's day, chocolate, and betrayals that turn out better than anyone expected.)





	chocolate ain't as sweet (when you eat it all alone)

**Author's Note:**

> so i fell hard for sungyeon/jihoon and HELLO IM SICK BUT STILL IN LOVE WITH PRISTEEN  
> woke up with a reaaaallly bad sore throat two days in a row ^^''' it hurts but i'm drinking lots of tea don't worry!
> 
> enjoy~

Jihoon is in love with a girl who smells like cinnamon, smiles like the sun, and inexplicably possesses the rare trait of being able to get him out of a bad mood. Her name’s Sungyeon, and for some reason she hasn’t ditched him as a friend yet. She even calls him things like “talented” and “interesting,” which is like calling a rock a good place to sleep, though then again, Sungyeon could sleep on his kitchen floor and still wake up refreshed and ready for the day ahead. It’s her powers of optimism and positivity, she says. Jihoon, on the other hand, believes that even if he had a million-dollar mattress to sleep on, he’d still wake up and hate everything. Powers of pessimism, if you will.

Thoughts about sleep aside—he can and he will go on for hours, just watch him—it has been for a while, since he “fell in love,” or whatever.  Though he’s not sure when it all started. It didn’t happen quickly—no “oh” moment like in the movies, but more of a gradual piling up of clues. Take last year’s summer, for example.

Sungyeon went off to this “Music Camp” that Jihoon’s never heard of and apparently couldn’t attend because he’s _too old_. For _three weeks_. Three weeks of pure boredom, aka torture, because Jihoon _can’t_ hibernate like he thought he could and everyone in his general vicinity that he considers tolerable is either on vacation, at a sports game, or both.

Three weeks of watching reruns of black and white silent movies. Three weeks of moping around and refusing to step outside and “get some air.” Three weeks—without Sungyeon. He hadn’t really figured out all of the love stuff yet—just that Sungyeon makes waking up at a “reasonable time” _way_ better—but this, in hindsight, probably should’ve tipped him off.

And when Sungyeon came home? Jumped right off that bus, raced up to Jihoon’s front door, and proceeded to somehow try and make him experience the entire three weeks through her powers of extreme storytelling? Jihoon was—well, happy, but he also felt… _jealous_. Not jealous that Sungyeon went somewhere cool without him—though he was getting there—but jealous that all those _other_ campers got three weeks of Sungyeon and he _didn’t_.

It was pathetic. _He_ was pathetic. Pathetic then, and pathetic now, seven months later—at the end of the school semester, approaching the most dreaded holiday in the history of man—Valentine’s Day. Because _reasons_.

The reasons being, a) Jihoon _knows_ he’s going to get like five chocolates from people he barely knowns, b) he _knows_ that Sungyeon’s got someone special because she’s been kicking him out of her kitchen and saying mysterious things since January and c) he’s going to pine away and die a lonely man.

Not good things. Thus, he’s in a horrible mood and Sungyeon, amazingly, has no interest in pulling him out of it. She’s abandoned him entirely—a common thing these days—instead talking with her girlfriends at a completely different table, and so Jihoon sits alone and broods.

Jeonghan finds him there, staring at nothing with a stormcloud over his head and promptly forces him to talk about it. Jihoon _would_ resist, but as the saying goes—misery loves company, so he relents and tells—not the full story, but one could call it the Abridged Version of Jihoon’s Suffering.

“Valentine’s Day is a horrible thing that never should’ve been invented,” he states, then plops his head down on the table with a _thump_. Jeonghan considers this, stealing one of Jihoon’s french fries in the process. Jihoon can hear Sungyeon giggling in the background, and it twists his insides in a way that he never would’ve thought possible. Sungyeon’s laugh makes a lot of things possible, like heart attacks and depression.

Aren’t they supposed to be _good_ things? You always hear romance protagonists blab on about how love has made them a better person, or opened their eyes, or something else on those lines, but do they talk about depression? _Technically_ , but Jihoon’s not calling this “heartbreak”. Just a bit of plain ol’ pining mixed with cowardice. Not romantic at all.

“Is this about Sungyeon again?” Jeonghan asks, being the all-knowing (and very annoying) person that he is. Jihoon sputters. Curse Jeonghan and his stupid “I’m getting to the heart of the problem in an instant and you can’t stop me ha-ha” way of asking personal questions. It’s useless to argue; when he knows, he _knows_. You can’t stop him.

Jihoon changes the subject.

“ _Again?_ ” he whines, lifting his head from the tabletop long enough to show Jeonghan he’s a pathetic and miserable human being. Jeonghan is not impressed.

“You fought two weeks ago,” he tells Jihoon. “Over some drama with Sungyeon making chocolate and you pouting about it until she felt bad enough to apologize—which, you know, wasn’t very nice of you, especially when it’s Sungyeon we’re talking about.”

“I didn’t _pout_ ,” Jihoon says, now quite indignant. He _didn’t_ ; he’s not some little child who needs attention every second, it’s just that Sungyeon has _always_ made chocolates for her whole class and she needs at least one pair of extra hands and if you think Jihoon is going to turn down an invitation to cook with a very focused and very adorable Sungyeon, you are sorely mistaken.

“She just never asked,” he says, quietly. Jeonghan raises an eyebrow and finishes the last of the fries. Jihoon doesn’t care. He doesn’t have much of an appetite anyway. All of this Valentine’s Day business is taking away whatever shred of energy and motivation he had left after Sungyeon downright snubbed him and _asked Yewon instead_. Sure, Yewon’s a good friend—they’re best friends, even—but Sungyeon’s _always_ asked him to help her. It was their… _thing_. For lack of a better word.

Besides, Sungyeon’s apology was just plain _fishy_. “I’m really sorry, Jihoon,” she said, over the phone when she should’ve been doing her homework, “But things came up… and I promised Yewon this time! We can do some more later!”

“It’s alright,” he told her, feeling both like a total jerk for getting worked up when Sungyeon is basically the sweetest creature on earth, and increasingly depressed that Sungyeon picked _Yewon over him._ “You don’t need to make time for me. I know you’re busy.”

“Thanks!” She’s obviously relived—Jihoon’s heart sinks deeper in his chest. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise!”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye! See you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow…” he echoed, and then spent the next hour staring at Sungyeon’s contact on his phone and wondering if she just forgot, or if she didn’t want him around. The thought scares him more than he would like to admit. What if she gets bored of him? What if she’s found someone better... What if, what if, what if. In the end, his head starts to hurt and he goes to bed with his homework unfinished and a hundred unanswered questions in his mind. The dreams that night were anything but sweet.

“Anyway,” Jeonghan concedes, pulling Jihoon out of his gloomy cloud of bad memories and back into the rapidly-becoming-just-as-bad present, “You’ll like this. You know Nayoung never bakes, right?”

“…Go on.”

“Mingyu’s been giving her lessons,” Jeonghan says triumphantly. “Seems like she’s finally trying to make a move, hmm?”

“Poor Seungcheol,” Jihoon deadpans, and Jeonghan snorts and throws a chip at him. “And poor Mingyu, too. Once Nayoung finds out he’s blabbed…” He mimes the off-with-his-head gesture. “She’s not lenient when it comes to secrets. I’d be surprised if she makes it without half the school knowing.”

“Well, I’m not telling Seungcheol. Are you?”

“What is there to tell? Nayoung is baking again, watch out?” Jihoon snorts. “Yeah, no.”

Jeonghan opens his mouth to say something, but the bell drowns it out. As the students stand and start to move, he gives Jihoon a wave and a thumbs-up, then disappears into the sea of backpacks and flashy sneakers.

Jihoon sighs and reaches for his own bag. Instinctively, his eyes search out Sungyeon—the short stature, the brown hair, the well-worn converse they scribbled on when she was sick and bedridden—but he can’t find her. Not like she would’ve wanted to walk with him anyway. She very rarely wants to do anything with him, these days.

Jihoon drags his feet all the way to his next class.

\---

Predictably, time marches on, and lo and behold—the D-day itself, and all the pink and flowered glory it brings. Jihoon almost buys some pity chocolate for himself, or maybe some flowers for his mother, but everything dies in his throat when he sees Sungyeon race up to the bus stop.

Sungyeon, all dolled up, with bows in her hair and earrings with little hearts and her cheeks all red and _is that her bag of chocolates?_ It’s huge! _And boy does she look good_. Jihoon only stops staring at the exact last moment, when Sungyeon stops puffing and straightens up and catches sight of _him_ in his drab old sneakers and favorite comfy sweater. Jihoon feels severely underdressed for a prom he didn’t even know about.

Strangely enough, Sungyeon doesn’t say anything—doesn’t even smile at first, but a variety of expressions flit across her face—surprise, disappointment, sadness?—before she smiles a bright and surely not fake smile in his direction.

“I was late getting ready,” she explains, which doesn’t explain why she needed to look like a princess in the first place, but she seems nervous. Shifty, almost. Like she needs to say something.

And then he gets it.

 _Ah_ , he realizes, with growing dread, _she’s getting ready to confess_. To someone else. With fancy chocolates. And a fancy dress.

 _To someone else_.

The words feel like a punch in the gut. Of course Jihoon’s thought about it before. Of course Sungyeon would find someone infinitely better and more likeable than grumpy, doesn’t-wake-up-until-noon Jihoon. That’s practically a given.

But one part of him has always denied it. Maybe out of spite, maybe out of pure desolation as to give himself a little hope, but now there’s no denying it. She’s _right there. The proof is in the extremely cute girl with the handmade gift bag._ Jihoon wants to laugh, but it’s possible he might cry instead.

He holds himself together just until the bus arrives, Sungyeon goes off to find her friends, and Jihoon finds a good window seat to stare out numbly at the pink roses that the school somehow decided they would tape to every window in every bus. And just to heighten Jihoon’s suffering, Sungyeon passes out chocolate to every one of her friends _except him_.

Something really unpleasant and wet starts to cloud Jihoon’s eyes, and he resorts to pathetically sniffing and feeling sorry for himself at intervals. Heartbreak, indeed. On Valentine’s Day, no less.

He should’ve known. He should’ve known, but it just seems so _sudden_. All the secrecy, all the avoidance, it just doesn’t make sense. Unless…

 _Unless_.

Unless—unless, the guy Sungyeon’s got her heart on is like one of Jihoon’s friends and she didn’t want to make things awkward between them by talking about it—that’s gotta be it. What if she asks Jeonghan out? Or Joshua, or—heaven forbid— _Soonyoung._ He might even say yes! And then—then Jihoon would have to watch his best friends get all lovey-dovey and _no more thinking about that, it’s too depressing and the school bus is stopped._

“C’mon, Jihoon,” says Seungcheol, who looks _cheery_ and _in a good mood_ and Jihoon wants to die. He takes one last savage sniff and blinks a lot of times, which doesn’t make him feel better, but gets Jeonghan off his back if it comes to that later. Seungcheol looks at him curiously.

“Hey, have you been…?” he starts, but Jihoon glares at him. Seungcheol wisely decides to not press further and switches topics to _how many chocolates to do you think I’ll get_ and _did you hear about Sungyeon?_ , both of which really don’t help Jihoon’s mood at all, but are quite a bit better than asking a crying person why they were crying.

He shouldn’t’ve gotten attached. He shouldn’t’ve gotten his hopes up—there’s no help for it now that he’s this far in, though. There’s nothing he can do but wait and hope. Wait for the seasons to change, and hope that he can somehow get rid of the growing feelings and attraction to somebody _who doesn’t love him anyway_.

It hurts. No buts about it. It hurts, big time, and Jihoon can only blame himself for falling this hard. No use blaming Sungyeon for being cute and sweet and _adorable_ and _nice_ and _oh_ , he’s crying again.

“Jihoon?” Seungcheol sounds concerned, but Jihoon really just can’t deal with him right now. He can’t deal with much, really, so he seeks out the hallowed place for such a time-honored tradition—the bathroom.

By the time the tardy bell rings, he’s late, puffy-eyed, and wishing for a face mask or sunglasses hide his red-rimmed eyes. As he has none, he improvises with the hood of his sweatershirt and sinks as far down in his seat as possible while classmates chatter around him.

Somebody clears their throat. Jihoon reluctantly lifts his head, probably looking like the physical embodiment of misery and a total nightmare with his hair all mussed besides.

It’s a girl. She’s blushing, which is probably cute to somebody, but he’s already starting to scare her away. She stammers once, fumbles with the package twice, and finally drops it on his desk and runs far, far away.

 _For Jihoon_ _❤! I hope you enjoy my chocolate >////< _

Jihoon sighs and reaches for the package. Looks like he got his pity chocolate after all.

\---

As the hours stretch by, punctuated by the ever-present spectacle of girls giving boys chocolate, which pans out in the variety of ways—Nayoung strides up to Seungcheol with a purposeful look on her face, with very quickly contrasts Seungcheol’s look of _pure confusion_. It ends well, though—Nayoung gives him chocolate _cake_ , which looks delicious, and Seungcheol responds by—

Jihoon looks away. Not his business. Not his business at all.

Neither is Sungyeon’s chocolate, which seems to have morphed into a multi-million-dollar franchise by now, because _everyone_ is either bragging or wishing they had some of her “famously sticky!” chocolate… fudge… thing. He almost smiles at that. It’s true, Sungyeon has a bad habit of “forgetting” to add enough thickener, which usually ends up as a delicious mess all over his and her faces, with her always proclaiming _I’ll get it right next time!_ and smearing fudge sauce on her forehead when she tries to reach for her ponytail.

It’s almost a happy memory, save the fact that Sungyeon didn’t invite him over this year and she’s planning on confessing to some lucky soul who caught her eye. That thought is enough to send Jihoon back down his Spiral of Sad, so he tries to push both the talking students and the memories out of his mind. It makes things more painless, but only by the smallest fraction.

He did get several chocolates, but word got around that he’s “in a super-duper nasty mood, so watch out”, courtesy of Seungkwan. Handy, because he’s feeling rather bad for glaring at three completely innocent girls in a row. Now people steer clear of him—even Sungyeon.

Sungyeon… he didn’t see her at lunch. Did she go outside? Or maybe she just got a fanclub and moved to another table… Jeonghan was nowhere to be seen, either…

Jihoon shakes his head. The only comfort—and it’s a small one—is that soon, this whole horrible ordeal will be over, and he can go back to moping in the safety of his own room. Ice cream will be involved. Binge-watching anime, maybe. Or romantic comedies, though that hits closer to home. He’d probably end up relating to the secondary love interest and start crying over everything.

He’s not even that emotional normally. Love really did a number on him.

“Jihoon?”

Everything stops.

 _Everything_ —Jihoon’s hand on his locker, his heart beating fast and suddenly not all, even the dust swirling through the February air seems to slow down to a state of static motionless that is only seen in near-death experiences and anime fight scenes. Which one this is, Jihoon can’t guess.

The only thing he does know is the simple fact that Sungyeon— _Sungyeon_ , is standing next to his locker for the first time in a month because _he’d know that voice anywhere_. Before, this would’ve been a given.

Now, it terrifies him.

 _This is going hurt_ , he says to himself. _This is going to hurt very, very much, so you might as well get it over with_.

As he turns to look at Sungyeon, flesh-and-blood Sungyeon, he’s forced to grapple with the truth of… _everything_ , really. His falling in love, which, by itself, isn’t _bad_ , led to this _mess_ of emotions and heartbreaks and the cold, hard truth that Sungyeon will, probably, never love him back. Ever.

And it’s tearing him apart.

Sure, it won’t be like this forever—but it takes awhile for feelings to fade, and Sungyeon talks to him _every day._ Or, at least, she did.

Maybe that’s why. Maybe she knows.

“Sungyeon.”

His voice sounds different to his own eyes. Too flat, too controlled. But how could it be any other way? This is all he has.

Sungyeon raises her head to meet his eyes, and it’s only with an immense amount of concentration can Jihoon hold the gaze. Nobody said it would be like this. Nobody said it would be this hard.

“Hi,” she says, so quietly it takes him by surprise. Somehow, Sungyeon is as subdued as he is—the downcast look, the tight grip of her hands on the gift bag—

The gift bag?

Jihoon blinks. Sungyeon starts to speak—quiet at first, but she summons some courage halfway through and gets a little louder.

“First of all,” she says, and her eyes are. So. Pretty. Jihoon’s heart says a final goodbye and jumps headfirst into The Land of Loving Bae Sungyeon. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” The words tumble out and suddenly, Jihoon can’t find one single scrap of willpower inside of him that doesn’t shrivel right up when Sungyeon says his name. Even throughout this entire stupid thing, Jihoon hasn’t let go of her. Somewhere, somehow, she’s still his to love. And not even _Soonyoung_ could stop that.

“F-for being a bad friend!” Sungyeon stumbles over her words like a toddler, nervous and shy and Jihoon turns as soft as a stick of butter. “I… I ignored you for days! I didn’t talk to you… It seemed like the right choice at the time, but I’ve hurt you and I’m _sorry_.”

“Wait, wait,” Jihoon interrupts, just as Sungyeon opens her mouth again. “Right choice? What… How could that _ever_ be the right choice?” Sungyeon flushes, bright red and close to tears, and she shrinks smaller and smaller under Jihoon’s questioning.

“I wanted to surprise you,” she admits, in a voice so tiny it takes Jihoon a while to realize what she said. “I-I wanted everything to be perfect! But now I’ve messed it all up.”

“Surprise _me_?” Jihoon repeats, as his brain starts to short-circuit. “Me? Not… not anyone else? That’s what… That’s what the outfit, and the…” His voice dies down, a combination of _I can’t believe this is happening_ and _is this really happening?_ crowding out his remaining vocal capacity. He might be choked up. He’s not sure. Does it really matter?

Sungyeon sniffs, and a big, fat tear rolls down her cheek. Jihoon startles, and a little thought pops into his mind.

 _She likes me_.

_She likes me._

_She likes me, not some other guy. She likes me. And now she’s crying about it. And you can’t just stand there, now can you? GO DO SOMETHING!_

“I never thought,” Jihoon stammers, freaking out and quite possibly rejoicing at the same time, and in his haste to get to Sungyeon trips over his feet five times and finally ends up pulling her awkwardly into his arms. Sungyeon, to her credit, holds on tight and cries only for a moment before she pulls away.

“I need to finish this,” she says, determined. Jihoon gulps and lets the feeling set in, the rush of adrenaline, the high of discovering that the one girl you thought was off limits wasn’t really off limits at all, but was in front of your face the _entire time_. It’s quite possible his legs are jelly and his heart is actually just a really small sledgehammer in his chest. Then again, anything is possible when Sungyeon is involved. It’s part of the reason why he fell so hard—she makes him feel invincible.

Sungyeon sucks in a huge breath and brings out the most extravagantly decorated chocolate Jihoon’s ever seen in his life—and he’s seen a few chocolates belonging to Jeonghan, which are no joke. This one, however, would put all of those to shame.

 _No wonder she didn’t want me in the kitchen_ , Jihoon thinks, followed by _is that actually for me?_ Any moment now, Seungcheol is going to pop up and say “pranked ya!” or something, right? Or maybe he’s just sleeping in science class again and had a _really_ detailed dream because he was so sad and tired.

“I like you,” Sungyeon explains, as if there was any doubt. “I really, really like you, and I want you to like me back, so here’s my chocolate and here’s my letter, and if you—if you don’t want it, you should tell me now.”

 _“Why would I do that,_ ” Jihoon says, so forcefully that Sungyeon actually jumps a little bit into the air. “Why would I ever do that? Why—why, after everything you’ve done for me—how could I—” It’s hard to find words, now, and Jihoon’s quickly running out of breath. He shakes his head, a bit impatiently, while Sungyeon worries her lip and turns a beautiful shade of red.

Jihoon exhales. His head feels a little light, but his heart no longer wants to burst out of his body, so he finds it in him to take a step forward and grab Sungyeon’s shoulders.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says, firmly, and Sungyeon gives a little gasp. “Is that okay?”

“I think it might be, if you do,” she whispers, which is just shy enough to make another wave of butterflies rise in Jihoon’s chest, but cheeky enough to warrant a poke on the nose and the roughly six kisses that come after. Jihoon wasn’t exactly _counting_ , if you catch his drift.

There will be time, afterwards, to talk about all the big and little things, the mundane and fantastical, the stories and thoughts and feelings and everything in between. There will be time for the small steps into “dating” and “love”, for whispered conversations, for loud declarations—but now, Jihoon’s just happy to be here. Here, with Sungyeon in his arms, who smells like cinnamon and smiles like the sun and the stars and makes him feel better by just existing—is he going too far? Does it matter?

Frankly, Jihoon’s still trying to wrap his mind around the biggest thing—Sungyeon, _his_ Sungyeon, being exactly as in love with him as he’s in love with her. It’s a lot to swallow, but he’s lucky, so very lucky, that everything worked out this way. He was _this_ close to a very _different_ future.

But for now, he’s content. Content to let time play out. Content to keep Sungyeon in his arms and to keep it that way for what seems to be longer than he realized.

He’ll eat the chocolate later.

**Author's Note:**

> me: so, christmas time  
> me: ...  
> me: VALENTINE'S DAY IT IS


End file.
